xxiiicame from, how the individual might evaluate diff erent options, and why one
choice might look better than the others. Voters’ decisions may be understood by
examining the diff erent feasible strategies they employ (issue voting, retrospec-
tive evaluations, stereotyping, etc.) and by asking ourselves why some voters use
one strategy while others use a diff erent one.
By focusing on individuals and choices, we can place students in the shoes
of the decision makers, and in so doing, give them insight into why people act as
they do. We can discuss, for example, why a House member might favor enact-
ing wasteful pork-barrel spending, even though a proposal full of such projects
will make his constituents economically worse off —and why constituents might
reward such behavior, even if they suspect the truth. By taking this approach,
we are not trying to let legislators off the hook. Rather, we believe that any real
understanding of the political process must begin with a sense of the decisions
the participants make and why they make them.
Focusing on individuals also segues naturally into a discussion of conse-
quences, allowing us to move from examining decisions to describing and eval-
uating outcomes. In this way, we can show students how large-scale outcomes
in politics, such as ineffi cient programs, don’t happen by accident or because of
malfeasance. Rather, they are the predictable results of choices made by indi-
viduals (here, politicians and voters).
The policy chapters—on civil rights, domestic policy, and foreign policy—
also represent a distinctive feature of this book. The discussion of policy at the
end of an intro class often fi ts awkwardly with the material covered earlier. It
is supposed to be a culmination of the semester-long discussion of institutions,
politicians, and political behavior, but instead it often becomes an afterthought
that gets discarded when time runs out in the last few weeks of class. Our policy
chapters explicitly draw on previous chapters’ discussions of the actors that
shape policy: the president, Congress, the courts, interest groups, and parties.
By doing so, these chapters show how all the pieces of the puzzle fi t together.
Finally, this book refl ects our experience as practicing scholars and teach-
ers, as well as interactions with over fi fteen thousand students in introductory
classes at several universities. Rather than thinking of the intro class as a ser-
vice obligation, we believe it off ers a unique opportunity for faculty to develop
a broader sense of American politics and American political science, while at
the same time giving students the tools they need to behave as knowledgeable
citizens or enthusiastic political science majors. We hope that it works for you
as well as it does for us.
PREFACE